Love's Passionate Affair
by NaruSasuNaruLover
Summary: I never meant for it to turn out the way it did. It was only a crush and I never intended to actually act on it." Zutara affair. Rated to be cautious but doesn't have any details really. oneshot.


**This is for the contest the Passionate Affair: Zutara Contest on DA **

**As always, I own nothing, otherwise well the show would have ended with Zutara, duh**

**Enjoy!**

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I never meant for it to turn out the way it did. It was just a crush, and I **never** intended to actually act on it. But before I knew it there I was, on his bed, with his lips running down my neck, giving me pleasure, but for the sake of not getting caught, never leaving a mark. I could feel the heat radiate off him, like it only could come from a fire bender, and that's when I knew: it was way more than a smile crush, and he knew it too.

To explain, I should really probably start from the begging, rather than the forbidden act it's self. My name is Katara, and at the age of fourteen, my friends and I helped save the world. At the age of fourteen, the all powerful avatar was in love with me. At the age of fourteen, I was confused, because although I did love Aang, I found myself undeniably attracted to the man who threw himself in front of lightening for me: Fire Lord Zuko. But I pushed aside my feelings; I wanted what would make Aang happy, because – like a mother would protect her child – I wanted to protect Aang from getting hurt.

It wasn't just my fault that Zuko and I never happened then, he went with Mai, who threatened his life pretty much if he broke up with her. I never even thought that maybe Zuko and I could work, I mean what a weird couple: water bender and fire bender; Fire Lord and water "peasant." The problem was that the feelings didn't just go away, and really I should have known that they wouldn't.

We were just teenagers; we couldn't see how all the signs really pointed to passionate love, not passionate hate. Zuko went with his childhood love, and I went with the one that thought it was love at first sight. It sounds good on paper, Fire Lord with fire nation noble, Avatar with water bender, but paper doesn't point out all the flaws.

Mai hated everything, except Zuko – at least that's what she said. But when it came down to it, it seemed that she loved the idea of being Fire Lady than being with Zuko, but he ignored it because it was what his nation would want.

Aang was well, twelve, and with the whole saving the world thing, I guess I forgot how young he was. But once it was all over, and we were alone, it was obvious just how young he was. They say girls mature faster than boys, yet here I was two years older than him and already maturing faster. As he found games fun, I found myself soon growing tired of and wanting to do something more adult – though mind you sex was never on my mind with him.

It was two years later that the first incident happened. Zuko and I were the two whom weren't together, yet kept in touch the most. We wrote each other all the time, and always hung out whenever we were in the same place – it was weird to think about, but Zuko and I had become best friends. Me going to visit Zuko when Aang was away for a long period of time was nothing that surprised anyone, we liked each other's company and no one expected anyone to happen. So when the summer of my sixteenth year came around and Aang was in the Earth Kingdom, and I was bored, so I went to visit him.

He was eighteen, I was sixteen, and I knew I wouldn't have to worry about childish games, which at the age of fourteen Aang still liked. I could talk to Zuko and he would understand, and really I never felt that way with Aang. I knew he could talk to me too, and he told me that Mai never listened to his problems; she thought that she could just kiss them away. The mere thought of Mai kissing him just made something in my angry, though I knew I couldn't let it show – I was jealous.

When I got there, the first thing I saw was him. He had on a small smile, like he did almost every time he greeted me. His hair was longer and up partly in the way all the previous Fire Lord's wore their hair. He seemed a little bit taller, but that might have just been my imagination after being with Aang so much in the past. It was obvious that he was the Fire Lord, unlike when he first took office, I could see a stature about him that was poised and confident, though not cocky, one that told me he was truly meant to be the one with the crown. He had a grace about him as he moved forward in his royal attire; it was like he was never that insecure teenager chasing us around the world.

I hadn't changed much from the last time I saw him, or at least to me I hadn't, but he said I did. My hair was down and wavy, a little longer than before. I wore the nicer clothes from the northern water tribe, as our tribes started to communicate again over the two years, and I was maybe a little taller. It had only been maybe half a year since we'd seen each other in person, but for some reason that seemed like forever for us both.

As I got off the boat, I quickly pushed passed the guards there to protect him – though he was certainly able to protect himself. The newer guards were shocked as I threw my arms around the Fire Lord and hugged him.

"Miss, get off Fire Lord Zuko," one of the new guards, said as he was about to pull me off.

"She's a close friend of mine, its fine," he said and I just smiled, happy to hear his voice again – pushing aside the feelings that told me I wasn't even that happy about hearing Aang's voice when I hadn't seen him in a long time.

"Really Zuko, he wasn't even able to stop me from getting to you when I ran to give you a hug, if I was a real threat you could be dead," I joked, making the man nervous that I was even on a first name basis with him.

"Katara, even if he would have tried, I think you could have gotten through," he laughed.

"Are you belittling your guard?" I questioned teasingly.

"No, I've just seen what you can do," he smiled.

I loved Zuko's smiles, I knew not a lot of people to get them and I was one of the few who could, "That's true."

Zuko looked at his guard, "I think we're scaring him now."

I looked back to see the man, his eyes as wide as possible, jaw dropped a little, and a terrified look in his eye – he was certainly scared.

"Don't worry, she won't hurt you," he said to the guard. "As long as you don't do something to piss her off, I'm sure you'll be fine."

I playfully punched Zuko's arm and turned to the stunned guard, "You have nothing to worry about, and I'll take my anger out on Zuko when I make him train with me later."

"Who says I have time to train with you?" Zuko asked.

I raised an eyebrow, "You better make time."

He just smirked at how easy it was to make me mad, "I was only kidding, we'd better be getting to the palace."

"Do you have a lot of meetings this week?" I asked, as we started to walk back.

"Only those necessary, so no, I mean it's not every day I get to see you," he said as if it was no big deal for him to make sure he we'd have time to spend together.

"Where's Mai?" I asked, just realizing that the gloomy girl wasn't there.

"Uh, well she went to visit Ty Lee for the week," Zuko said, I knew he didn't want to let me realize how she just happened to leave when I came.

"She doesn't like me much, huh?" I asked, knowing that the dislike was mutual.

"What? Of course she does…she just wanted to see Ty Lee," He said, doing a horrible job at lying.

"You know, you're a horrible liar," I said, shaking my head slowly.

He just bit his bottom lip, a nervous habit he had, but I just laughed and said, "Its fine, not everyone has to like me."

"I guess," he said with a sigh.

We both knew why she didn't like me, though we tried to stay away from the topic. Mai made it clear that she thought I liked Zuko – which was true – and we both knew that's why she didn't like me.

We arrived at the palace and Zuko showed me to my room, which seemed almost unnecessary as I always stayed in the same room, yet he always did.

It was about an hour before dinner when I finished unpacking my things, and I found myself bored, so I decided to find Zuko.

I made my way to his room, which wasn't too far from mine, as I figured that may be the best place to start. I knocked on the door, hoping he would be in there, because if he wasn't then he'd probably be in the throne room or his office doing some kind of work.

"Come in," I heard his familiar voice say.

When I opened the door, I saw him lying on his bed, a piece of paper in hand, hair down, and no longer in his Fire Lord attire, but in something more like he wore when he came to the Air Temple only more royal – I found the relaxed Zuko looked even better than I remembered.

"Oh, hey Katara," he said as he sat up and put the paper he was reading on the night stand next to his bed. "Did you get settled in?"

His hair was no longer in the awkward, yet hot; stage it had been when he joined the group, but instead it was down to his shoulders. He looked great as he sat up and the only thing I could mutter out at that point was, "Yeah."

He gave me a warm smile, "Good, is there something you needed?"

I suddenly snapped out of my trance, "Uh, I just wanted to spar with you, well if you can handle it."

"I think it's you that won't be able to handle it, little girl," he said teasingly.

"Well now you're just asking for it," I said as I poked him hard in the chest, not realizing it was where he'd gotten hit by the lightening until after I'd done it.

"Just hit my weak spot why don't you?" he said with fake pain.

"So you're admitting that you're weak?" I teased.

"Just come on, let's go spar, peasant," he said, though took off running, knowing even if we teased each other that if he called me peasant I'd water whip his ass.

I chased him out to the gardens, where there was a supply of water I could easily use, though I didn't really get the chance that day. Zuko had run too fast and as his feet hit the dirt he felt his balance off, though he tried not to, he tripped. If I would have seen that, well we may have not had this whole thing happen. As I didn't see it, I was bound to make the same mistake, but instead of landing on the hard ground, I landed on Zuko. I quickly pulled myself up so that I wasn't laying face in the dirt, only to see that I was chest to chest with Zuko, and that our faces were mere inches away from each other.

Zuko had turned himself over after he hit the ground, only just in time for me to fall on top of him. Now if we were both single at the time, this wouldn't have been such a bad position, but we weren't. We were two teens, whom were attracted to each other, and not really thinking about our other relationships, which really weren't going to well anyway.

I don't know who made the first move, or even when it was made, all I know is that, that was the first time I kissed Zuko. It wasn't like the kisses that I shared with Aang in the least. The kisses I shared with Aang were gentle, and soft, though lacking something. Zuko, his kisses were somewhat more aggressive, though passionate, and filling, as if I could feel the way his tongue moved in my mouth all the way down to my toes. But as soon as it came, it was gone; fore we were both with someone else.

For the next week we tried to forget it happened, we said it was just that we both missed our significant others. We both knew we were lying, that we just didn't want it to be awkward, and that's probably what made us not really stay away from each other. By the end of the week, our passionate affair had started and it continued every time we saw each other. No matter who else was around, we were able to find a time to continue this affair, and neither of us really expected us to do so, or to take it as far as we did, but when you aren't able to see the one that you **really** are attracted to, well it tends to build up.

Which leads us back to the beginning, where three years of an affair led us to his bed, with a nineteen year old me and a twenty one year old Zuko on his bed, where he kissed down my neck, though left no evidence. His hands roamed my body, making me shiver as his warm touch ran down my sides. Those hands moved up my shirt a little, as if asking if it was okay to proceed as he kissed me deeply. I just responded by undoing the tie that kept his royal robe closed.

We broke apart as he pulled my shirt over my head, tossing it mindlessly on the floor and I pushed the royal robe off him, before removing the undershirt. We fell back into the kiss as his hands seemed to automatically remove the breast bindings, throwing them to join the other clothes on the floor.

We broke apart once more as he kissed down to my chest, before swirling his tongue around the now harden nipple, causing me to moan. My fingers ran through his hair as he kissed his way down my chest and stomach before coming to hem of my skirt. He looked up at me, as if to make sure I wanted to actually do it. I merely encouraged him to continue as I ran my fingers through his hair and nodded.

That was when our affair hit me as it was real. When I felt the passion of him inside me, and the wave of heat as we climaxed, that's when I knew that we couldn't go back to just kissing when we could sneak off. We had let our passionate affair, go from two teenagers whom liked each other, to two adults who needed something more – something that our significant others couldn't give us.

I'm almost ashamed to say that it continued on, that we didn't stop as we saw it all getting out of hand, but I certainly don't regret it. We were more in love with each other than we were in love with the ones we actually claimed to be, but we knew we couldn't be together in the eyes of the public. But like all good things, this one had to come to an end, and unfortunately it was not a happy one.

I had gone to see him upon his request when I was twenty one, though when I got there he didn't smile once, in fact he looked rather sad. When we were walking back there was none of the usual flirtatious banter, and I had a bad feeling as to why. He didn't show me to my room, just merely asked me to meet him in the gardens an hour later.

I went to the gardens as he asked; he was sitting in there, his face hardened by what he had to say.

"Zuko, what's wrong?" I asked as I sat next to him.

"I love you," he said as he looked up at me.

I smiled at him and said, "I love you too."

"But we can't do this anymore," he said sadly, I knew it wasn't what he wanted.

"What's going on?" I asked concerned.

"I'm going to ask Mai to marry me, and I'm pretty sure she'll say yes, and if that happens, this…affair can't continue," he said, his words stabbed my heart like a knife.

"You're going to marry her?" I asked, trying not to cry.

"The council wants me to marry, they say I should have done it years ago and that, there should be heirs running around here already…you have to understand Katara, we never could work…no matter how much I want us to…I love you so much, but I have a duty to my country," he said, and I could see in his eyes he was torn between his country and his heart.

"I understand Zuko, I guess we always knew it would have to end one day," I tried to be strong about it, though I could feel a tear roll down my cheek.

He kissed my forehead, I know he feared if he kissed my lips he'd change his mind, as he said, "I'll never love her like I love you."

"Is that supposed to make it better?" I laughed a little through the tears.

"No…I just wanted to make sure you know that."

So, just as quickly as our passionate affair began, it was over, and no one but us ever knew. It was hard to see him after it was all said and done, knowing that I was the one he loved, but he was with her to make his nation happy. He knew in a time just after the war, what his nation needed was stability, and "stealing" me away from the Avatar, and bringing a southern water tribe girl into the royal family, was not what his nation would see as stable.

I still can't help but wonder, the what if's even as I look at my own children play with his. He married Mai, I married Aang, just as everyone expected, even if it wasn't what our hearts wanted. I can't truly know how things would have changed if we'd just been together, but what I do know, is that we had a love that some search a life time to find. Even if it was just an affair and even if we couldn't be together, we knew the truth. And even if I don't tell my kids whom it was that made me feel what true love is; I know when I have to tell them how to tell if it's love, I'll tell them the feelings I had with Zuko. But most of all, what I learned from our affair, that I'll tell my kids, is to never let anyone tell you that you can't be with the one you love. Part of me just wishes that I could have thought to say that when he told me we couldn't be together.

**The End.**

**I feel like it sucked...maybe it's cause I ended it in Maiko and Kataang...but I did that because it was just an affair...maybe if I get some reviews asking me to, I'll have what happened in the gardens change with an alternate ending...maybe but I'll need enought reviews...tell me what you think...and the rating was just to be careful so if you think that it only nees a T rating let me know!**


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